


October 2019, London - Part I

by germanjj



Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [10]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: Sometimes love is so clear to see, visible for everyone around you, and yet you're not able to reach out and touch it, grab it, pull it towards you. It's like it's buried under clear glass.And sometimes, you find the cracks in the glass, but you're unsure wether to finally break it.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657570
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	October 2019, London - Part I

A knock on the door makes me look up, my heart jumping inside my chest against my best efforts to keep myself in check. Nothing had changed. We’re just two friends who are planning to spend time with each other.

Yet everything had changed. Talking to Tyler had opened a waterfall of words, breaking through a tiny crack in the armor and then rushing out, leaving nothing but ruins in its wake. My place on the chessboard had changed. But when I look over to Timmy, he’s still sitting crowded by the other pieces, unable to move.

“Hold on a sec,” I tell my wife. “I gotta let Timmy in.” I see her smile on the screen, and she nods while I make my way over to my apartment door, unlocking it quickly. 

Timmy had announced his arrival minutes before via text, while I was already on the phone with Liz and the kids and I quickly stopped the call, let the doorman downstairs in my temporary London apartment know to let him right up as soon as he would step foot into the building, and then called my wife back. It’s one in the morning in London and nights where I had time and energy to call home are rare. 

He wears a tired but genuine smile when I open the door for him, and I desperately want to take a minute and just look at him. 

I never would tire of seeing Timmy for the first time after we spent months just texting or facetiming. Never tire of witnessing how he changed, how his face changed and his hair grew and his body filled out. Watching him grow older right in from of me, relishing and mourning the fact that I had met him and loved him when he’d still been so young and now I could watch him flourish into a man I was proud to call my friend. 

“Hey,” he smiles and I respond to it just the same way, and I quickly hug him, tightly, letting him go knowing full well that I wanted a longer hug, a real hug, with both my arms around him and not one hand holding a phone my wife was waiting for me to return to. It had been too long. 

“Say hi to Liz,” I say and move the phone in front of his face and Timmy lights up a bit, waving into the camera. 

“Five minutes, and I’m all yours,” I tell him and point to the sofa. Timmy nods, and I notice his tired eyes even more now that he isn’t looking at Liz any longer, and his tired shoulders and feet, dragging over the thick carpet. I close the door and make my way into the kitchen to finish my call, guilty about having invited Timmy now, who clearly is exhausted from his promo tour, but elated to see him and have at least part of a night to spend with him and him alone, no wife or kids or mothers or agents or friends. 

I feel even more guilty after thinking the last part. I finish the call quickly, saying my goodbye to my wife and kids, who had been playing in the background, quickly bored with Daddy only being on a phone screen and walk back into the living room. 

For one irritated second, I think Timmy has left and my stomach drops. I don’t see him right away, only when rounding the corner do I find his long, thin frame lying on the sofa. Fast asleep. 

He has his arms crossed over his chest, his face towards the cushions, lips lightly parted. I stop, rooted to the spot. Watching him, watching the rise and fall of his chest, something tightens in my own chest. I long to touch him. Long to brush the hair out of his face, to trace along his cheekbones, to hug him tight and not let go until both of us have had enough, like a battery reloading by touch alone. I know what that longing means, recognizing it quickly now, like an old friend who had long been around, but only now had I turned around to greet them. I have worked months on coming to terms with the fact that sometimes love isn’t so clear cut into friendship love, and brotherly love and desire filled love. Sometimes it is all there, all at once. 

I contemplate getting the blanket from the armchair and draping it over him and just letting him sleep. 

Something selfish inside me insists on waking him up, on demanding the few hours of his time that I was promised before he had to leave early the next day for interviews and appointments and then would fly to the next stop on the promo tour. But that part doesn’t win and instead convinces itself it is for the better.

I hear Tyler laughing incredulously in my head. ‘Have the two of you actually ever talked about this with each other?’

No. Partly because we communicate so much without talking, just by touch, just by a look, by a raised eyebrow. And partly because talking about it would give this thing substance, a body, something real that, once born, could now be destroyed and easily die. 

I know we have to, at some point.

I decide against the blanket idea and opt for getting Timmy into my bed, where he wouldn’t wake up with a cracked neck and his back hurting. 

“Hey, Timmy,” I whisper, one hand lightly touching his shoulder. 

“Hm,” comes a reply, but he doesn’t open his eyes or move otherwise. 

“Let’s get you to bed.”

He doesn’t stir. I reach for him, one arm sneaking under his shoulder and steadying his neck while pulling him up. 

His eyes open and find mine, his brows furrowing. “Hm?” he makes that sound again, this time a question.

“Come on, let’s go to bed, you’ll sleep better there.” I gently pull him against me, chuckling as his arms fall around my neck and his nose against my shoulder. He is heavier than I remember, I note, not without relief, recalling how thin and frail he’d seemed during the filming of A Beautiful Boy, not only worrying me but also eliciting worried comments from Liz and, on one occasion, even my daughter. 

I get him to stand upright, leaning against me, with no effort on his part. His gentle and welcoming weight pushes against mine, my body already soaking up his nearness like a sponge thirsty for water. He smells intoxicatingly warm.

“Come on,” I laugh again as we make our way across the living room to the bedroom, a tangle of limbs, an intimate dance of two people, one half asleep, one half drunk on love and longing and happiness to have what he longed for just in his arms.

Just how his feet don’t help our journey across the apartment, his arms cling to me as if something deeper, more primal, is making him hold onto me, even subconsciously, telling him that I am safe.

Warmth spreads through me, something I can’t help, and my throat tightens. I had loved many people in so many ways, loved all of them deeply and honestly, but couldn’t help but admit that this is different altogether. 

“Almost there,” I tell him when we reach the bed, ready to pry his arms off my shoulders and get him into it. I’m not looking forward to a night on the sofa, but I am convinced a night in an actual bed will do Timmy some good. 

And then I quickly bury the thought of him sleeping between my sheets and that flutter of excitement that comes with it. 

“No,” Timmy mumbles against my throat, or at least something resembling that word. He shakes his head slightly, his hair tickling me. 

I laugh, trying again. “You need sleep, man, come on.”

“No,” he repeats, this time a fraction more coherent, his breath hitting the spot just below my ear. “Wanted to spend time with you.” 

And then his lips touch the same spot. 

I freeze, convinced it was an accident until he does it again, this time the touch morphing into a kiss. 

He sighs against me, moving his head to place another kiss on my neck just below. 

“Timmy.”

He suddenly feels different, pressed against me the way he is, one of my arms around his waist, the other around his shoulders, and I am acutely aware of how he moves against me, every breath he takes pressing his chest closer to mine and then his hips against my crotch, his knees against my legs.

His hand finds his way to the base of my neck, gripping tightly as he trails kisses down my throat to my shoulder, humming, nuzzling against my skin as if he is savoring the taste of it. 

I let it happen. More than that, I welcome it, my own body craving his touch, savoring every bit of it, trapped in the overwhelming feeling of love for him, for this moment. 

His lips make their way up my jaw, over the stubble of my cheeks and then, finally, find my lips. 

There’s a sharp intake of breath, from both of us, at the first touch of our lips, as if our lips before our minds realize the treasure they find in the other, ready to worship every moment they are connected. 

Both his hands fly to my face, and he pulls himself up as if he wants to crawl into that kiss, into me. 

Memories erupt like an explosion, memories of kisses under a hot Italian sun, memories of light pecks and long make-out sessions, all directed, all filmed, all two other people experiencing. 

Memories of him in my lap, kissing me as if it was the only thing keeping us alive.

It’s different now. A jolt of something, something scary and dangerous and exciting shoots through me as I learn once again how Timmy kisses, or how Timmy kisses now, a tired intensity, a lazy hunger, as if that hunger is buried so deep, only a taste of it reaches the surface. 

I groan when our tongues meet, and even the last cells in my body seem to wake up and join, just like my lips had, the excessive celebration of his body so close to mine, that at some point, I would not know mine from his. My own hunger for him crawls out of every crack and corner of my soul.

“Timmy, hey, wait,” I murmur, pulling back slightly, as the thought of exploring that hunger, mine and his, being the subject exposed to it, brings me dangerously close to giving in without thinking, without talking about what it means. 

And talking is what we need to do before we risk losing ourselves in our tiny little box, our coffin made of glass, where everyone could see into, see us, see the love between us and around us, and yet was not able to reach us and break us free.

“We can’t,” I say but don’t tell him why we can’t, my throat tightening when I think of any of the reasons why we shouldn’t. I press my lips above his nose, on his closed eyelids, first left, then right, just like I had done back then, and it feels ten times more meaningful, ten times more like I am holding someone precious in my arms. 

I gently move his head away from mine and find his cheeks flushed, but his eyes still closed. 

He opens them slowly, pushing the breath out of my lungs and almost erasing my own resolve to put a stop to this. He’s changed so much in the last few years. Round, soft angles have become sharp, defined, and infinitely more delicate. 

Seconds tick by as his eyes finally clear, and I feel like I’m watching him waking up from a deep dream. 

“Armie,” his whispers, astounded, and I wonder briefly if he actually had been asleep. His blush turns deeper. 

“Must have been a nice dream you had there,” I joke, every word hurting my throat. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back just enough to clasp his hands over his face, covering his mouth, his eyes looking up to mine in horror.

“It’s okay, man,“ I tell him, wishing to get that look out of his eyes.

“I’m so sorry.” He’s shaking his head as if he’s trying to wake himself up completely. 

“Dude, you look fucking exhausted,” I say, laughing, desperate to change the mood, already missing the quiet familiarity of minutes ago.

“God, this press tour is killing me,” he says, rubbing his eyes. 

“Go to bed. We can talk in the morning.”

He looks up at that, clearly wanting to take me up on that offer. 

“Go,” I laugh, gently pushing his shoulder and the moment is broken. 

I take a deep breath, every inch of distance lifting some weight off my chest but with that weight gone, leaving me hollow. 

“I can take the sofa,” Timmy says, not convincingly. 

“You take the bed,” I motion to him to get in, already on my way out of the room. “You need it more.”

“We could both-,” he starts, and I feel the pain that I see flashing across his face right between my own ribs. 

I shake my head. “No. I think we’re past that.”

Arriving at the door to the living room, I hesitate, holding on to it while watching Timmy standing near my bed, looking as forlorn and shaken as I feel.

“See you in the morning. We’ll talk then, okay?” I say, gently, watching his face play out all the confusion and concern and all the longing I am feeling. 

There’s a moment of silence, with him watching me, watching him. A moment where it takes everything in me not to walk back into the room and pull Timmy back into my arms, consequences be damned. 

That moment passes. 

“Good night,” he says, his voice thin.

“Good night, Timmy,” I reply and close the door behind me.


End file.
